Learning Curve (1998) was originally called
Detention, but was changed to avoid confusion with a far lesser film
by the same name. I can review it in two words ... BUY IT! It
belongs in the same category as films like Breakfast Club, Band of
the Hand, To Sir With Love, Stand and Deliver and The Substitute
series, but it is not derivative of any of them. The subject is the
relationship between problem High School students and an
unconventional teacher, but it was not predictable at any point. As
I am strongly recommending this low budget indie, I will not reveal
any of the plot. It would be a shame to spoil any of the surprises.

IMDB calls it a drama, but drama/dark comedy would be more accurate.
Part of what made this film for me was the fact that there was no
exposition that relied entirely on obvious dialogue, and every
detail was not spelled out and spoon fed to the viewer. The film
could have easily become a little boring in the second act, but the
main plot was intercut with a sub-plot, keeping me glued to the
screen. All characters had a clear arc, not only in the film, but
also in each scene they appeared in. There were also some very
clever lines, including my personal favorite. The main character has
just been accosted by a very uptight female administrator, and says,
"When she farts, I bet only dogs can hear it."

IMDB voters score this a respectable 6.5 of 10, but the mean is
8.3, the median 9.0. This is another case of IMDB applying their
secret sauce to the score. One critic called it the best indie of
the decade. After receiving a warm reception for his first film,
Positive ID, writer/director Andy Anderson was in demand as a
screenwriter. That provided a regular paycheck, but none of his
scripts was ever greenlighted, so, after ten years, he decided to
make his own movies again. A full time teacher himself, he knows the
public school system intimately, and many of the more implausible
plot elements in act one actually happened in the Texas school
system. Even if none of the films listed above appeal to you,
and you do not usually like Independent film, you may very well
enjoy this one as much as I did.

Scoop's comments in yellow:

There was a time, as late as the
early 70s, when personal advocacy films were an important sub-genre
in Hollywood. There were films that pushed (or pandered to) a
specific political or sociological point of view, to the point where
the position advocated by the film was far more important than the
characterization or plot or artfulness of the film itself. After
coming out of these films, people would grab dinner or coffee and
discuss or argue the issues being treated by the film, pro or con,
as opposed to discussing the movie itself.

These examples come to mind: Joe,
Billy Jack, The Harrad Experiment, The Green Berets, Z, Up the Down
Staircase.

I can't actually name a great
movie or even a very good movie with a provocative advocacy
position, but some of the movies listed above were popular, and all
of them were widely discussed at the time. Billy Jack was a cultural
phenomenon. That type of film was
generally cast out of Hollywood when the era of the blockbuster
arrived in the mid 70s. People did not come out of Jaws discussing
the general issue of water safety. Star Wars is not supposed to
provoke thoughtful discussions about fascism or religion. People
came out of the blockbuster movies talking about the movies - the
music, the visuals, the incidents, the characters. When the great
cultural revolution ended with Nixon's resignation, and our long
national nightmares were over, movies went back to being thrill
rides and poems instead of political arguments and essays.

You see, here's the deal with
advocacy movies. You measure them by how strongly people react. A
really powerful advocacy film stirs up powerful feelings of hatred
as well as admiration. It didn't take the Hollywood studios long to
determine that being greatly hated was not the optimal route to
people's pocketbooks, so Hollywood went back to being The
(Politically Correct) Dream Factory, except for an occasional
aberration like Oliver Stone. In the 60s and 70s, people could make
a lot of money by advocating strong positions, but today's stomachs
seem to require blander food.

When Hollywood abandoned advocacy,
independent filmmakers were starting to come into their own, so they
made, and
continue to this day to make, advocacy films for their personal causes. Learning Curve
is the kind of "attitude" film that inspires deep regard and deep
animosity, much like The Green Berets, or Billy Jack. There are a
lot of people who feel that this film says some things that should
be said, and there are people who find it detestable and fascist. It
is the kind of film that starts passionate arguments. I think that
must mean it is pretty good, because people don't get passionate
about mediocre things. Not many people love or hate the bland,
mediocre George H.W Bush, but his predecessor and successor inspire
powerful love and hate from supporters and detractors. I think that
tells you that Reagan and Clinton were both great men, in their own
ways. Perhaps only very great men are loved and hated so strongly,
and perhaps some of that applies to films as well. If so, this film
is loved and hated strongly.

You can see from Tuna's
review above, he felt it was one of the best movies he has seen
lately. Contrast that to
this review, which takes hundreds and
hundreds of words to argue that, "I hated (it) vehemently, not just
because it is moronic, melodramatic, unrealistic, and unfunny, but
because it is evil."

Actually the guy who wrote that
review doesn't know what he's talking about on the "unrealistic"
assertion. For example, he wrote:

Everything that happens to these characters
defies logic, which would be fine, but Andy Anderson is
presenting these situations as if schools really operate this
way. For instance, why would a kid as nice and smart as Joey be
in a detention class with a group of hooligans? Joey explains
that people are always beating up on him, so the administrators
call him a troublemaker and throw him in detention. Ironic
again, but not in a remotely plausible fashion.

Well guess what, dude? Not only is
it plausible, but it is routine business as usual! This movie takes
place in Texas, and that is EXACTLY how it works here in Texas with
our silly "zero tolerance" rules. I know this from experience. We
anguished over our own "Joey". My daughter was the target of a
bully, and did everything she could to avoid her, including
reporting her to the school authorities. When the bully finally hit
her, she fought back, and was sentenced to a special week's
detention, despite the facts that (1) there were forty witnesses who
vouched for her blamelessness, and (2) she had filed written
complaints about the instigator. The school administrators, in their
wisdom, determined that there were two students fighting, and that
there was a zero tolerance policy against fighting, therefore two
students got detention. We told them that we knew the confrontation
was coming, we told our daughter what to do, she did everything that
we and the school told her to do, and the school district not only
failed to protect her, but punished her! That's just about exactly
what happened to Joey in the film.

(If you are wondering, we took her
out of that school and transferred her to another school in the same
district - but have had to drive her there each day for many years.
She never had another problem of any consequence.)

The answer is "most certainly".
For her fighting episode, my daughter was assigned to a special area
of the district for a week, and there the students were not allowed
to mingle with the regular student body, getting all their
instruction from special "detention teachers".

Bottom line: the filmmaker knows
EXACTLY what he's talking about, and you can ignore the factual
basis for the other guy's criticism, but the passion of the critic's
advocacy is the very thing which tells me this must be a pretty
darned good film. It gets under people's skin, and gets people
passionately involved on both sides of the argument. That's what
advocacy films should do.

================

Irrespective of its POV, is it
actually a good movie?

It's OK.

It has problems. The production
values and performing are ordinary at best. The dialogue is trite
and the jokes are sophomoric. Sometimes it gets lost switching
between realism and surrealism in its treatment of the situations,
and it also switches back and forth between serious and darkly comic
approaches, keeping one foot in and one foot out of the reality
room.

The DVD is presented in a letterboxed
widescreen format, and includes documentary, deleted
scenes, and a trailer.

It also has rewards. It has a
great opening credits sequence. For a movie with a serious POV, it
is remarkably entertaining. It offers elements of a thriller and a
comedy as well as a social advocacy film. The fact that it kept some
interesting plot elements hidden from view added to the reward of
sticking it out to the end.

Overall it is well worth the watch
for one reason: the originality of the concept. I watch 20 movies a
week, so they all blend together after a while, and they all seem
like copies of something else, but this film is fiendishly
different. There's is nothing like it, and I don't think I will soon
forget it.

In addition, it is so blatantly
Politically Incorrect that it will appeal strongly to those of you with an
anti-authoritarian streak.

The meaning of the IMDb
score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics,
or a C- from our system.
Films rated below five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one
and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but
will be considered excellent by genre fans, while
C- indicates that it we found it to
be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for
fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is
recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C-
that often, because we like movies and we think that most of
them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know
that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below
C-.

Based on this description, Scoop says, "this is a C+. Strange film: part
black comedy, part social satire, and even a little bit of film
noir. Not a blockbuster kind of mass-audience film, but a pretty
strong little cult film." Tuna graded it a B. See above.